


The Inception of a Cat Lady

by RubyofRaven



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily (DCU), Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Bittersweet, Bruce Wayne is Batman, Cats, Class Differences, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Introspection, Mentioned Talia al Ghul, Money, Motherhood, Oblivious Bruce Wayne, Patriarchy, Selina Kyle is Catwoman, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27306517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyofRaven/pseuds/RubyofRaven
Summary: Selina and Bruce have more in common than one might think - and not just dressing up in animal-themed costumes and doing acrobatics across Gotham's skyline at night.Selina and Bruce both cannot turn away a helpless little creature in need.Bruce has his kids and Selina has her cats.OrSelina’s near brushes with motherhood.
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Bruce Wayne, Batfamily Members & Selina Kyle, Selina Kyle & Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72





	The Inception of a Cat Lady

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! 
> 
> My marvelous and inimitable friend Ruby of Raven has generously posted this fic on her account for me. She’s been very helpful and supportive, so shout out to her!
> 
> I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween! 
> 
> Disclaimer, I do not own Batman or any of its characters, plot events, etc.
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> \- MMR

Selina is aware of the cat lady stereotype. 

She is also aware that she checks certain boxes of that stereotype: Female. Unmarried. Childless. 

However, she would simply like to offer a second point of view: Feminist. Independent. Free. 

True, she doesn’t fit the frumpy and old criteria. But why can't a cat lady also be beautiful and young (ish)?

Well, maybe that’s the difference between being a cat lady and a cat _woman_.

Besides, her age is nobody's business but her own. She can still leap across rooftops in a skintight leather suit, so that's really the only age metric that she needs. Anyway, Bruce is at _least_ her age and he definitely has more gray hair.

Which brings her back to Vicki Vale’s latest journalistic disaster - and Selina’s using the term “journalistic” _very_ loosely. Things with Bruce have been going surprisingly well lately, so of course Vale has to shit all over it. The journalist’s latest article speculates that Bruce has not proposed (and some part of Selina wants the fairytale proposal, but the rest of her would pop the question to Bruce right now via text if she thought it wouldn't send the man running for the hills as his brain fails to compute normal human emotions) to Selina despite their increasing age - _How dare they?! Again, she is in her prime (ish)!_ \- because they simply have nothing in common. 

Bruce is old money, Selina clawed her way up from the gutter. Bruce is a CEO and philanthropist, Selina “collects” and resells art. Selina has avoided motherhood, while Bruce is a father to four. Vale wore out the class argument four articles ago, so this one really lays on thick the parental disparity. Vale asserts that, fundamentally, their view of family is just too different. The social elite learn to suss these kinds of things out early to avoid potential gold diggers, she concludes.

Selina very well knows how to get her own gold, thanks. And it's been a long time since she had to sleep with a man to do it. It wouldn't be a Vicki Vale article without a gold digger accusation against Selina, though.

As for the rest of the article, well, Selina and Bruce have more in common than one might think  
\- and not just dressing up in animal-themed costumes and doing acrobatics across Gotham's skyline at night. 

Selina and Bruce both cannot turn away a helpless little creature in need. 

Bruce has his kids and Selina has her cats. 

\-----------------------------------

Selina named herself after cats. 

There is, of course, the association of cats and femininity - though that one's always confused her a bit. Cats come in both sexes, and the grace, the confidence, in their smooth movements is present in both. Why limit beauty to one gender role? But she won’t complain about the association when it suits her tastes just fine. 

That said, she didn’t choose her nighttime identity to embody some outdated artistic feminine symbol. Selina really named herself after alley cats. Independent creatures. Vicious fighters. Protective and territorial. Unashamed. Half starved and still graceful. Unwanted but still determined to live. They're a reminder of her past, of where she started. Of the poor part of town were pests run free - children, cats, cockroaches.

The cockroaches she couldn’t care less about, but the other two, the other two she has a soft spot for.

\-----------------------------------

On the night the Flying Graysons fall, Selina is there. She came on the arm of some CEO’s oldest son. He’s dull and rude, and in the first fifteen minutes of the show she takes her leave of him and takes his watch with her. She stays toward the back of the audience, trying to stay unnoticed but not quite willing to pass up the chance to see the performances. Then the Flying Graysons step out, the spotlights shoot up, the audience roars, the ropes snap, the parent’s hit the ground, and a little boy is left alone in the spotlights. Alone in the world.

The paramedics arrive, and the cops, and everyone is busy taking and giving reports. She sees the little boy, forgotten in the chaos, sitting off to the side of the main rings with a tinfoil blanket over his shoulders. She sees him, and she can’t leave him. So, she sits beside him, and runs a hand soothingly through his hair until the commissioner comes over with a social worker. She considers staying, but when she sees Bruce Wayne coming over, too, she bows out. 

Half formed, illogical plans to offer to foster the child are shoved away to the back of her mind, because this is a better option for everyone. She presses a kiss to the boy’s hair and leaves like she was never there to begin with. 

She leaves the circus that night, and for the first time she seriously considers getting a date with Bruce Wayne. Not just for an evening, but for… longer. She’s not ready for marriage, to sacrifice that independence, but maybe it would be nice to be slightly less solitary. Sometimes.

The next week she goes to a fundraiser for the humane society with the younger brother of the CEO’s son. The food is fancier than necessary, but the organizers brought in a selection of animals from the shelter for the benefactors to see - and possibly adopt. Her date is sweatier than his brother, but equally as dull. She leaves with his wallet in her clutch, and a little orange kitten in her arms.

\-----------------------------------

Still, Selina and Bruce _do_ have things that separate them.

A fortune worth of them, for one.

Selina has managed to claw her way to a comfortable life. Maybe a step or two _above_ comfortable.

But that would change drastically if she had a dependent, or dependants. She's confident she could provide a middle class lifestyle, but it would mean stealing. Well, more stealing. Riskier stealing. Not the occasional fun heist she pulls nowadays- often more to get Bruce's attention than out of any financial need. 

She would need to steal for real. For rent, and food, and tuition. And the stakes for getting caught would go way up. Selina is good, better than good. And she clearly likes a little thrill. But she didn’t survive the streets, and the criminal world, without being damn good at running a cost/benefit analysis. 

Kids mean more money, which means more stealing, which means a higher likelihood of being caught.

\-----------------------------------

At night, most street kids have the sense to find a corner or crevice to curl up in and wait for the relative safety of daylight to return. Selina rarely sees a kid out when she’s running the rooftops. Tonight she’s been - _not stalking Bruce, she’s not desperate_ \- following Bruce as recon, and she’s crouched on a rooftop above the alley she knows he left the batmobile in waiting for him to return. 

They’ve had an on-and-off thing going for years now, and right now Bruce is determinedly _off_ while she wants to be _on_ \- and she’s getting sick of waiting for him to come around. She’s been focused on the neighboring rooftops, looking for the telltale shift in shadows that means Bruce is on his way back, when she hears a scuffle in the alley below. She peers down and sees movement. Even in the low light, she can tell it’s clearly a child with a tire iron. 

He must be the gutsiest little thief she’s ever seen. 

It’s sort of adorable. 

Selina briefly considers intervening, but Bruce can afford new tires. 

Besides, since when is she the person who _discourages_ thievery?

The kid works fast, but he still has one tire left to go when Selina spots Bruce swinging his way back toward the alley. She could scare the kid off, could even distract Batman to help him get away. But the boy’s too skinny and he looks half-feral the way a lot of the longer-surviving street kids do. 

She remembers the circus, remembers that Bruce already took in one stray. Maybe he’ll take in another. 

So she doesn’t move, doesn’t let the boy or the Bat see her. She only leaves her rooftop perch, satisfied, when Bruce takes the boy home. 

Once they’ve left, Selina drops down into the deserted alley. She can’t quite say why - perhaps out of some undefined sentiment, or to check for any spare lug nuts to taunt Bruce with. 

The alley should be silent now, but as she rises from her landing crouch she hears a faint scratching sound from one of the dumpsters. She lifts the lid and the noise grows louder and she can make out a wobbly moew-ing coming from a cardboard box. She opens it and lifts out a scruffy little cat with big eyes and a fluffy gray tail.

“I guess you’re looking for a home, too,” she murmurs.

\----------------------------------

Selina could try and ditch the night life, but then she wouldn’t be able to provide the kids a middle class lifestyle. 

She's a single woman in America, in _Gotham_. She never went to college. First she didn’t have the money, and then she was too good a thief to care. Any normal job she could land, no matter how good she is at it, will not sufficiently cover a comfortable life for herself plus children. 

She tried normal jobs once upon a time. They didn’t pay the bills - and she won’t go back to the street corners.

There's a reason she's put so much effort into not becoming a single mother her whole life. It's not because of the social stigma (seriously, she dresses up as a cat for fun). The financials just don't work. Long hours, low pay, no daycare, shit healthcare, nonexistent retirement. These are all realities that complicate life, that complicate raising children. Growing up, she saw the people around her beaten down by these realities. 

They terrified her so much that she grew angry, that she decided to cheat the system cheating her. She decided to do whatever it took to make these things become a passing consideration, rather than a guillotine waiting to drop. But she’s only made a secure life for one - having kids would set that back. For Selina and for them. 

Selina can offer them a better life than the streets, but Bruce can offer them a better life than Selina.

\-----------------------------------

The third child nearly gives her a heart attack. 

Bruce has been particularly distant lately. They’re technically still dating, but since Jason—

Bruce hasn’t been dealing with his grief, and he hasn’t been answering her calls. She’s hurting too, and part of her is angry with him for bringing Jason out to fight to begin with - but mostly she misses Jason, and she misses Bruce even though he’s the one still alive. So maybe she implements an elaborate heist from Gotham’s best jewelry store to distract him, and to possibly cheer him up a bit. She definitely means to send a message. 

She’s good at multitasking. 

She took all the engagement rings. Touched nothing else - not even the more valuable and cat-themed things. Maybe something this lacking in subtlety will _finally_ get through Bruce’s thick skull. 

Yes, the timing isn’t good, but the timing for them will never be good. Jason is—  
But life goes on. Sadness and happiness can coexist. Maybe one day Bruce will understand that.

Selina is no amatuer, she leaves way before Batman arrives at the store. Actually, she almost forgot to trip the alarm on the way out. She’s a few buildings away, watching Bruce, when she realizes she’s not the _only_ one watching him. 

There’s a little moving smudge on the sixth floor fire escape on the building opposite the jeweler’s. It leans out over the alley and resolves itself into a tiny child with an expensive camera - the glint of the lens clear in the foggy light of the lampposts. He wobbles a moment and almost over balances, before catching himself with a hand on the railing. Selina was already half poised on the edge of her own rooftop, ready to swoop over and grab him, but she relaxes back. 

She thinks it’s good he steadied himself, because if he fell she would have caught him. And, well, he’s so small and clearly needs taking care of, and after Jason— 

She’s not sure if she held him she’d be able to let this one go. 

But she’s still not equipped to provide for a child, and Bruce is. Maybe raising another child could help him move on. Not as a replacement, but as a reminder that there are still people for him to protect, people he needs to be a role model for. 

Bruce better adopt this one soon, Selina thinks, as the kid totters up another story of the rusty fire escape. 

Selina whistles, and it pieces the night. The boy startles and then freezes, but Bruce is already making his way over to investigate the noise. Good. Selina is ready to take her leave, let Batman find the kid. But this one is sneaker than she thought, and he’s already blending into the shadows. Batman’s pretty much to her roof now and Selina is not in the mood to be caught tonight. She figures she’ll just have to keep an eye out for the boy in the future. 

In the end, she doesn’t have to. The sneaky kid finds Bruce all on his own - and her, for that matter. A few months later, when the newest Robin (really, has Bruce learned _nothing_?) properly meets her, it’s raining and she’s about to call it a night. She hasn’t found anything heist worthy in ages, so she was just out tonight to stretch her legs, keep her skills up, (she totally wasn’t watching the kid’s patrol to make sure he was okay). He lands on her roof and pulls a wet kitten from under his cape.

“I found her over in the warehouse district. She almost fell in an oil barrel,” he tells her, holding the kitten out to Selina. He’s so small, and his expression is so earnest. What else can she do? 

She takes the kitten home.

\----------------------------------

Bruce has never known the realities of financial insecurity. Every hardship he's faced, except the loss of his parents, he has elected himself to in one way or another. His choices were not forced or limited by the system he unwittingly was born at the top of. 

Yeah, just try to tell Selina royalty doesn't exist in this country - it just has a different name here: billionaire. 

It's a system that frustrates Selina to no end. It’s why, when she steals, it's from people like Bruce. People who already have more than too much. People who should have given some of it back ages ago. 

Rich men treated her like a thing, and now she steals their things. There’s justice in that, even if it’s only the poetic kind.

Though she's not exactly Robinhood, she'll admit. Sure, she gives some funds from her “art deals” to shelters and charities, but she doesn’t only keep enough to subsist - she likes a bit of luxury.

But fair system or not, the reality is that Bruce has a manor, a fortune, an Alfred. He's a bit of a constipated mess emotionally, and his enemies are insane. But he's protective and means well, and Alfred is competent, and his financial security makes up for it.

In Selina’s experience, good intentions and financial security make up for a lot.

Granted, he trains the kids to fight in his crusade. She's unimpressed, but she probably should have seen it coming - because, of course, crime fighting is the only way he can come up with to bond with them. 

If she thinks about it, her dates with Bruce that happen on the rooftops tend to go better than the ones in fancy restaurants. It's exasperating. And maybe (though she'll never admit it out loud) it’s slightly endearing in its own way. She too, appreciates an _alternative_ nightlife.

\-----------------------------------

Selina meets the fourth child at a gala. She’s Bruce’s plus one, and things have been tentatively going well between them for a while now, though they’ve both been busy and keeping things on the down-low. So this is the first time she’s really been to the manor in the last few months.

She’s seen the news headlines about Damian Al Ghul-Wayne: The Long Lost Son (and really Bruce? Really? Over ten years she’s been trying to get Bruce to _go steady_ , much less propose, and he goes and has a kid with _Talia_?). She knows it’s more complicated than that, but it still rankles some part of her hindbrain. 

And well, Talia might have an eternal youth thing going on, but at least Selina’s not part of a crazy assassin murder cult. In the long run, that probably gives her the definitive edge with Bruce. 

Damian spends the first half of the evening by his father’s side, shooting glares her way whenever she manages to break away from socializing with rich airheads long enough to spend a few moments with Bruce, his arm wrapped loosely around her waist. Halfway through the event Damian is pulled away by Dick and she loses track of them. Across the ballroom she can see Tim charming some investors, and she swears she catches a glimpse of Jason lurking by the refreshment table. With all the kids under one roof, even if just for a few hours, Bruce is at ease in a way she’s rarely seen. 

As the night comes to a close, Selina steps out of the ballroom, hoping to switch her stilettos out with a fancy pair of flats she brought as back up. But before she can reach the closet with her tote, she stumbles across Bruce’s youngest son. He’s in the deserted entrance hall, sitting half in the shadow of the grand staircase. 

Earlier he came across as a prickly little brat, but here, alone, he just looks like a kid. Young, and tired, and a bit confused. A black and white cat wanders down the stairs and the boy’s eyes light up in childish affection as he scratches the cat under the chin, and she figures he must not be that bad. 

This kid is already Bruce’s, there was never even a chance at his being hers, but she sort of wishes he was. That she could put an arm around him and tousle his hair like a mother. 

She might not be the most maternal person in the world, but she’s sure she’s better than _Talia_.

Instead, she goes back into the ballroom. Makes some excuse to the stragglers still hoping to impress the Waynes, and pulls Bruce out to the staircase. While he goes to talk with his son, she collects her things from the coat closet. 

It’s the smaller one friends and family use rather than the guests, and there’s a family photo by the door. It shows Bruce and all the boys. It’s not perfect - Damian is scowling, Tim looks half-asleep, Jason has motor oil on his shirt, and Dick has a mullet - but Bruce looks content. Fulfilled. Not-alone.

Selina grabs her coat and her spare shoes before quietly leaving the manor. She thinks of the photo and how, if things were different, that could have been her. 

She goes home to her cats.

\----------------------------------

Bruce can more than cover the cost of the childrens’ needs. He can pay for only the best of everything. Every option is open to them. 

The knowledge of Bruce's privilege stings a little less at the idea he can use it to provide a good life for the kids. 

Bruce always was the most tolerable of Gotham's billionaires anyway. He manages to mostly be privileged with only a _bit_ of entitlement. He's emotionally absent, but Selina figures she'll stick around - pick up some of the slack.

If Bruce was less of a paranoid, stubborn, oblivious mess, they'd be married already. He thinks she still thinks Bruce's fortune isn't quite worth compromising her independence. He doesn't realize the kids changed things. Or he does but he thinks it's cemented keeping her away - that she'll resent the complication. 

Bruce, for all his impressive detective work, isn't very good at reading hearts. 

Selina doesn't have an apartment full of cats just to fit some theme (not everyone is as literal as Bruce). The pieces are right there in front of him, but he never puts them together right. 

\-----------------------------------

Selina has a soft spot for small helpless creatures. She doesn't have a fortune.

So Selina adopts cats and Bruce adopts kids.

**Author's Note:**

> Just fyi, two of the ways the cats are found happened to people I know. One of my family members found one of her cats by saving it from a box left in a dumpster, and one of my friends who lived on a farm had to save a couple barn kittens that fell in an oil barrel - and it didn’t make it into this story, but my father saved a kitten that had fallen down a grate in the sidewalk. Even in the least expected places, there are creatures in dire need of help. Please be kind to animals!
> 
> \- MMR


End file.
